A well-meaning but slight portrait of war-time suffering, Summerland felt manufactured to me. Despite its subject matter, I thought it lacked gravitas and authenticity. We’re in Kent in south-eastern England during the Blitz of 1940-41. Alice Lamb (Gemma Arterton) is an avid researcher and writer. She analyses folklore. Her small community regards her as harsh…
A deeply traumatic beginning gives way to emotionally wrought second and third acts in Kornél Mundruczó’s drama Pieces of a Woman. From a well-to-do family, Martha (Vanessa Kirby) is in a relationship with a rough and ready working class man, Sean (Shia LaBeouf). They both excitedly await the birth of their first child. Martha opts…
Well, that was a year! With everything that went on in 2020, movies proved both a comfort and a hope for better times. The big story of the year was the rise of streaming as a genuine alternative to (and in some cases, a replacement for) traditional cinemas. Those changes played out elsewhere, and we…
The ancient and modern worlds collide in the special effects action blockbuster Monster Hunter. Based on a video game series of the same name, the plot – such that it is – is basically inconsequential. It’s merely an excuse for non-stop fighting and a legion of monsters to test and retest the limits of human…
The idea that the collective is stronger than the individual underpins The Croods 2: A New Age. This is of course the sequel to the successful animated film The Croods (2013). The story picks up when young Guy (voiced by Ryan Reynolds) is left to fend for himself. His loved ones’ last words to him…
I can’t think of an actress who has epitomised class, style and magnetism more than the late, great Audrey Hepburn (1929 – 1993). The documentary Audrey charts her life’s course. Notwithstanding remarkable and well-deserved success, there was also much pain and sadness. She was just a young girl when her parents split and war broke…
The Nightingale (2018) rewrote the rules around brutal representations of Australia’s colonial past. Now The Furnace follows in its footsteps, albeit less successfully. In remote Western Australia circa 1897, a young Afghani cameleer, Hanif (Ahmed Malek), is determined to escape the outback and return home. Hanif has witnessed a white man murder his mentor. Now…
Slow to ignite, The Witches is an uneven adaptation of Roald Dahl’s novel of the same name. It’s 1967. Eight year-old Hero Boy (newcomer Jahzir Bruno) loses his parents in a car accident and goes to live with his Grandma (Octavia Spencer) in rural Alabama. Clearly hit hard by their passing, he says little and…
Words on Bathroom Walls is an important movie. This mainstream dramatic teen romance normalises schizophrenia. While it’s often disturbing, it has an authenticity about it. That has much to do with the balance in the script by Nick Naveda – based on a novel of the same name by Julia Walton – and the calibre…
A low-rent Australian drama in which very little happens, How Do You Know Chris? is strictly film festival fare. It is the year 2000. Nineteen year-old (nearly 20) Emi Mustafi (Tatiana Quaresma) meets Chris (Luke Cook), 28, in a laundromat. Even though they’ve just met, the older copywriter invites the commerce student to a small…
